This confirms what my gut feeling was when your first posted this thread. Open courses are not nearly as exciting as ones with trees, but I'll personally go to heavily wooded courses and moderately wooded courses about an equal amount given equal access to them.

Maybe, but even on a beautiful 65 degree day where shade isn't a necessity I would rather play a wooded course than an open one.

^ding, ding, ding. I agree with Chuck on avoiding open courses on oppressively hot days, but I favor the challenge of having to shape shots regardless of weather.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer courses with some degree of balance between the two. For example a course that's mosty in the woods, but has a few out in the open, or vice versa. While there are many very good courses don't have that type of split personality, they typically don't score as well here. In fact, that lack of variety is often cited as a reason for not rating the course higher.

Statistically, a wide open hilly versus wide open flat course of the same length will have about the same SSA. In other words, hilliness in general does not directly affect the net challenge of holes.

Do you have actual data to back that up? I think a course like Brandywine plays a few strokes harder with the elevation changes especially with the wind than if the course was flat. The elevation factor is probably a bit harder for Ams rather than the Pros though. I think it's really hard to get a real apples to apples comparison anyways.

Yes, those comments are based on actual data. Remember we're comparing the effective lengths of the uphill holes and downhill holes with their flatland equivalents. And wind would affect them essentially the same. The flatland length of an uphill hole is roughly its length plus 3 times the elevation difference from tee to pin. For downhill holes in terms of challenge, you do not deduct 3 times the elevation difference. You use the actual length. You only deduct 3 times the elevation difference on downhill holes when determining how long it plays from a throwing energy standpoint.

So the flatland equivalent length of a course with elevation is going to be the direct line distance from tee to pin (following the dogleg paths) plus 3 times the net elevation differences on all of the uphill holes.

courses like Richmond Hill definitely add strokes because of the elevation. layout wise it's mostly a bunch of straight shots through gaps but a lot of holes are over a big valley so if you go offline you can get farther off the fairway than if it was flat; and if you dink a tree and end up at the bottom of the valley your upshot is way more difficult than if it was flat. not to mention the numerous roll aways you'll encounter.

I agree with Mash about the regional differences when it comes to what is lightly/heavily wooded or very hilly/ moderately hilly. I would also add that region plays a huge roll into what a course is rated. Unfortunately I just don't think there is enough data out there to come up with "factual info". I personally prefer a "challenging" course. Typically that means moderately wooded or heavy and moderately hilly to very hilly.

Different strokes for different folks is always going to make the numbers inconsistent...especially without a large selection to derive numbers. IMO (and I'm sorry to bring this up on this thread) there should be a better system for "who" gets to write reviews. The "trusted reviewer" thing is just not cutting it. There are only a select few whose reviews I will read when deciding whether to play a course or not. I don't really have a better answer as to what would work better, but I would push for an amendment......just saying